


how can you afford that rick and roll lifestyle?

by b0nes



Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence and Gore, M/M, Substance Abuse, canon-typical ford being standoffish and a little rude, canon-typical rick being a toxic shithead, copious swearing, high concept science fiction rigamarole, i'm making everything up on the fly, multiversal shenanigans, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25116637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b0nes/pseuds/b0nes
Summary: the chaos theory is defined as chaotic and complex systems having underlying patterns in predictable forms when you really hold them up to the light; a very small change within those systems may make them behave completely differently. basically, there's no such thing as random happenstance in the universe.or, more aptly put, this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object in real-time and one of them nearly gets shot between the eyes with a super-heated laser charge.
Relationships: Ford Pines/Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty)
Kudos: 8





	how can you afford that rick and roll lifestyle?

**Author's Note:**

> i was at work when i decided, you know what the world needs more of? stanchez content. i set this up to have multiple chapters, but we'll see how far we get into this godawful wormhole. i may tag in more characters as we go, if they're plot relevant, but there'll be some mentions here and there of various npc ensemble characters. if you want to pitch adventure ideas for these guys, just toss em in the comments!

rick sanchez has an ugly laugh. like, deep-throating an on-fire gravel driveway mid-summer ugly; rough, loud, interspersed briefly with shouts of manic glee or villainy, stammering back through the joke or fuck-up that made him start howling in the first place and doubling back over itself like the galaxy's worst mobius strip.  
it's a laugh that stanford pines has come to loathe. every time he hears it in the distance his lip curls in annoyance and he has to remind himself to breathe before rick flies past with some new fresh hell on his heels. every time he hears it within the bounds of his personal space (a concept he's still fruitlessly trying to hammer into rick's head), he feels like some horrible ugly monster is going to try and claw its way out to strangle the man.  
and ford's not so sure at this point he'd be too pressed to stop it, if he were being completely honest with himself. he feels it again as his boots slam heavy onto the metal floor of the ship, laser rounds searing past him too close for comfort, and he can hear rick's triumphant _HA_ start melting into laughter and cheers. a not too insignificant part of him wonders what the hell it's about _this time --_ they're too busy to stop and have a gaff with intergalactic law hot on their tails and a backpack full of stolen equipment -- but ford is a dozen paces past when he realizes rick's gangly ass is nowhere in sight. he slides to a stop in the corridor to look behind him and what's there to greet his bespectacled face but an array of portals on the floor, walls, and ceiling, all passing guards through them at terminal velocity. rick, apparently for just a touch of zest, kicks a chunk of shrapnel into the nearest portal and the entire set-up very quickly becomes an alien meat grinder very quickly. ford's stomach turns and he has to avert his gaze as some unidentifiable organ manages to break the circuit and hit the ceiling with a wet slap.

"yeeeeah, that's what you get! that's what happens when you fuck with the f-f-fucking smartest motherfucker in the multiverse!" rick flips the bird to each portal and nearby surveillance cameras and by the time the portals slurp closed, there's nothing left but a meat wall of viscera on the floor for the rest of the guards to find when they finally catch up.  
"rick! do you mind gloating later? we need to get _out of here._ i'm not going back to prison," ford presses as rick's short-lived sadistic delight flutters away on the back of a hefty sup from his pocket flask.  
"yeah, yeah, alright, buzzkill," he grumbles, "let's bounce, tonka." rick nonchalantly pops a swirling green hole into the floor and jumps in like he's hopping down the last two steps on a long flight of stairs. there are a lot of things for ford to stammer about this time, but he gives up in the end and races to the portal, sliding through just before it disappears.  
  
they land in a cluttered hangar that's more garbage than flyable ships, rick on his feet and ford with a stumble a few seconds later. rick's car is teetering awkwardly between a pile of hazardously leaning metal crates and the arms of the bay door, wobbling every so often as the ship they're evidently now in the belly of gets rocked by heavy laser fire from the outside. rick, still energized from his TPK, goes straight for his car (why does he call it a car? it's clearly some modified flying saucer. really.) to try and free it from where it had been stacked like a weightless toy. ford has never been less impressed in his life.  
"wait." ford pinches at the bridge of his nose. he can feel a migraine coming on. "hold on. when were you planning to tell me you knew _exactly_ where the car was this entire time?"  
it's not like rick ever goes out of his way to explain anything unless he's trying to showboat again, but ford is finding himself more and more aggravated by the lack of apparent detail in the plans this lunatic comes up with on the fly.  
rick stares at him for a few silent seconds before he turns back to start trying to push his overly modified space vehicle onto solid ground. " _please_ , you think i'd waste more time in this fucking toi- _hrrp_ -toilet full of bureaucratic turds any longer than it takes to stop having fun _killing them?_ gimme a break, freakshow."  
he's not exactly a powerhouse of a man, ford notes, and rick's spindly arms shake with the effort of trying to shove his car onto the floor. in the short pause, ford decides to take some small amount of joy from watching the way his shoes slide against the floor. with all of his toys thoroughly fried, rick only has his batshit computer brain to rely on and that can't really deadlift an entire saucer-sedan on its own.  
"how many times do i have to tell you i have a name?" he finally asks, folding his arms across his chest and looking over the frames of his glasses. ' _freakshow_ ' was never funny even one single time.  
rick pauses like he's really considering it before he looks over his shoulder, "uhhh, wha-what are we at now?"  
"thirteen since this morning..." ford's expression sours.  
"fourteen by lunch. bet." rick throws his shoulder against the front of the car and when it doesn't budge he turns around and raises his arms in a clear _'what the fuck are you standing around for?'_ gesture directed at ford. ford doesn't say anything, just shaking his head and, on three, throws his weight into the car with rick. after a try or two, they knock it loose and jump in, kicking empty bottles aside. it had taken all of about two minutes when they met for ford to realize that sober rick was not a person who existed and he was definitely lying every time he said he "drived the car more good" when he was drunk.

"alright. two things," ford begins, buckling his seatbelt and holding up two fingers. rick says nothing but he does glance down while he leans out the window and lines up a shot to make the hangar door drop wide open to the orchestra of screaming hull breach alarms. the sudden loss of pressure only lasts until he gets back in and closes the door, but it's enough for that careless whisper of a migraine to clothesline ford and it takes a hot minute to reorient himself. then, the car zooms out in a cloud of storage debris, sucked back through the hole and into open space. "what does 'tonka' mean, and how did you know they were keeping your car in the cargo bay. real answers this time, if you don't mind."  
"okay, well, first off, _pointdexter,_ you ask too many questions which just isn't very sexy of you, and second, you talk like a guy who-who wasted his life teaching _social studies_ until the history channel decided he'd be a better documentary narrator for their think-piece about growth cycle of _grass_. tonka? come on. y-y-you know, like, those orange dump trucks, or whatever," rick makes some vague swirly gesture that _to him_ might represent one of those orange dump trucks as he kicks the car into autopilot and leans the seat back.  
"that doesn't make sense." ford has had a long day. he wants to find a cheap space motel and take a long shower, not have this stupid conversation about the semantics of every nickname rick uses on him for the, apparently, thirteenth time today.  
"you know what, built ford tough, _you_ don't make sense!" rick jabs a finger in his direction before he settles back, resting his head on his arms. "i'm a _genius who makes the multiverse his bitch,_ i don't have time to come up with-with... _quirky nicknames._ for every temporally displaced whackjob i meet, i'd never get anything done."  
ford frowns so hard his eyebrows touch his glasses.  
"oh, and as for that second thing-" rick holds up a device retrieved from somewhere within the hammerspace of his coat pockets with a glass screen displaying a map. some kind of gps. of _course..._ "-i put trackers on everything i own."  
ford squints at the device and his eyes follow the silvery crack across the screen that's spider-webbed into a thoroughly destroyed touch pad before looking up again. his voice is flat, following a sigh with, "you guessed, didn't you..."  
"you know it, babyyyy! let's fucking goooo! taco tuesday, bitch!"


End file.
